The President of the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, Sheikh Abdulrahman Al Alsanad, stated that the authority is fully functional and working within the powers that are granted to it by the state’s security system. It remains in “good condition” and is fully operational. The re-organization of the authority means strengthening and protecting its members while at the same time keeping them away from the work that should be done by the police.

He responded to the critics who accuse him of being extremist, saying that that the Kingdom is one of the first countries that fought terrorism and worked to combat it. He went on to say that “Saudi Arabia has always been serving humanity”, highlighting the fact that the Kingdom has launched a number of initiatives in this regard, for example the King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue (KAICIID), which clearly underlines the Kingdom’s efforts in the fight against terrorism and extremism.

How Islam confronts extremism and terrorism: a reading in Al Azhar declaration on citizenship

Dr Sammak, an esteemed figure in interreligious dialogue, provided an overview of the steps undertaken by the Muslim world to face the rising tide of violence and extremism in the name of Islam. He presented the process that led to the joint initiative of Al-Azhar and the Muslim Council of Elders to organize a conference in Egypt last February focusing mainly on freedom, citizenship and diversity.

He highlighted the cumulative contributions of the different statements and conferences organized in the past few years in order to face this distortion of the image of Islam and Muslims around the world. He concluded by providing a road map for the way to correct the rifts in the interpretations of the Coran and to provide up-to-date Islamic discourse and jurisprudence that are authentic to the spirit and essence of the true Islam.

This Azhar declaration provides good grounds to trigger an interreligious dialogue leading to a new civil contract based on the principles of freedom, justice and citizenship and under the rule of law.

Vatican calls on Jains to work together for peace and non-violence, starting with families

The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue yesterday, March 29 released a message for the Jain festival of Mahavir Jayanti titled Christians and Jains: Together to foster practice of nonviolence in families, signed by Pontifical Council President Card Jean-Louis Tauran and Secretary Mgr Miguel Angel Ayuso Guixot.

NEW DELHI: The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue yesterday, March 29 released a message for the Jain festival of Mahavir Jayanti titled Christians and Jains: Together to foster practice of nonviolence in families, signed by Pontifical Council President Card Jean-Louis Tauran and Secretary Mgr Miguel Angel Ayuso Guixot.

The Council sent “its warmest felicitations” to the Jains as they celebrate the 2,615th anniversary of the birth of their Tirthankara (spiritual leader) on 9 April. “May this festive event bring happiness and peace in your hearts, families and communities,’ said the message. This religion is based on the principle of non-violence. The Mahavir Jayanti festival is its most important religious festival. Celebrations will take place across India and include processions, hymns, prayers and sharing meals. The day commemorates the birth of Mahavira also known as Vardhaman, the 24th Tirthankara, philosopher and Indian ascetic who lived in the 6th century BC, and gave the faith its present form.

Unlike Brahmanic Hinduism, Jainism is egalitarian in terms of caste. Its highest aim is to attain liberation from the cycle of existence through a series of austere practices. According to India’s last census, Jains represent 0.4 per cent or about 4.5 million out of a population of 1.2 billion. “Violence, with its many and varied forms, has become a major concern in most parts of the world,” reads the Council’s statement.

“So, we wish to share with you on this occasion a reflection on how we, both Christians and Jains, can foster non-violence in families to nurture peace in society. “Violence stems from unhealthy upbringings and dangerous indoctrinations. Today, in the face of growing violence in society, it is necessary that families become effective schools of civilization and make every effort to nurture the value of non-violence.”

“Non-violence is the concrete application in one’s life of the golden rule: ‘Do to others as you would like others do unto you’. It entails that we respect and treat the other, including the ‘different other’, as a person endowed with inherent human dignity and inalienable rights.”

“Unfortunately, refusal by some to accept the ‘other’ in general and the ‘different other’ in particular, mostly due to fear, ignorance, mistrust or sense of superiority, has generated an atmosphere of widespread intolerance and violence. This situation can be overcome “by countering it with more love, with more goodness” (Pope Benedict XVI, Angelus, 18 February, 2008).”

“Family is a prime place where a counter culture of peace and nonviolence can find a fertile soil. It is here the children, led by the example of parents and elders, according to Pope Francis (in Amoris Laetitia), “learn to communicate and to show concern for one another, and in which frictions and even conflicts have to be resolved not by force but by dialogue, respect, concern for the good of the other, mercy and forgiveness”.

In concluding, the Pontifical Council stresses that “As believers rooted in our own religious convictions and as persons with shared values and with the sense of co-responsibility for the human family, may we, joining other believers and people of good will, do all that we can, individually and collectively, to shape families into ‘nurseries’ of non-violence to build a humanity that cares for our common home and all its inhabitants!”–Asia News

Mohamed Bechari, President of the National Federation of Muslims of France (FNMF), also runs the Clichy prayer room in the Rue des Trois-Pavillons. An address to which the mayor (LR) Rémi Muzeau directs the faithful who were expelled on 22 March from the municipal building of the Rue d’Estienne d’Orves . While a new street prayer is expected to take place this Friday in front of the town hall, the religious leader answers our questions in an interview.

How do you view the current conflict?

Mohamed Bechari: I am very worried about the political reclaims just a few weeks before the presidential election but also about the religious reclaims that the association of the Rue d’Estienne d’Orves cannot control. Everyone must now live up to their responsibilities and enter into a constructive dialogue. Everyone has to ensure that the Muslims of Clichy can pray with dignity and legality.

The situation reminds us of a stalemate…

I believe in the goodwill of the mayor and I also understand the fear of the associations. The municipality offers them a marquee until the end of the year. They demand a land of the city and a long-term solution. But if there is no property available, perhaps today we must turn to the State…

Can you accommodate everyone in the Rue des Trois-Pavillons?

Our mosque is open to all and we cannot ask people who do not live in Clichy to go and pray elsewhere. Our capacity in there is 700 people on the ground floor and about the same amount of people on the first floor (…)

The associations of the Rue d’Estienne d’Orves attack you on the fact that you are not Clichois …

I did not come to Clichy as a tourist! We were picked up in 2004 to solve a local conflict that already existed with the street prayers. Our application papers for a permanent mosque were then refused eight times! (…)

Femi Fani-Kayode, a foremost thought leader in Nigeria, studies the trajectory of the Muhammadu Buhari regime with regards to the number of lives lost in tragic circumstances under the president’s watch. Four hundred people were killed by meningitis in our country in the last few days.

Twenty-two girls were abducted by Boko Haram in Borno state four days ago. Ten people were killed by Fulani herdsmen in Cross Rivers state three days ago. Two more people were killed by another set of Fulani herdsmen in Kwande, Benue state two days ago.

Worse still suicide amongst Nigerian professionals (including bankers, lawyers and doctors) and members of the middle class as a consequence of the harsh and intolerable economic conditions that they are facing has reached alarming and epidemic proportions.

Sorrow, carnage, tragedy and affliction has struck our nation in the last few days and weeks yet we have not heard ONE word about any of them from our ailing President.

Worse still the only thing that Buhari’s struggling Minister of Health has said is that the federal government needs to borrow one billion USD to stop the spread of meningitis. Clearly, we are in serious trouble (…)

Northern Nigeria needs prayer. They need to reach Prophet T.B. Joshua, Bishop David Oyedepo, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, Dr. Daniel Olukoya, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah, Dr. Sign Fireman, Dr. B.O Ezekiel, Bishop Mike Okonkwo, Pastor Paul Adefarasin, Dr. Tony Rapu and as many other servants of God as possible and get them to stand in the gap and invoke the Living God’s power to forgive, heal and bless their land.

Patel, who served on President Barack Obama’s Advisory Council of the White House Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood initiatives, will speak at 6:30 p.m. in Norton Chapel. The lecture is free and open to the public.

The Chicago-based Interfaith Youth Core seeks to build the global interfaith youth movement. It was founded on the idea that religion should be a bridge of cooperation rather than a barrier of division.

Organization officials believe American college students, supported by their campuses, can be the interfaith leaders needed to create and support this bridge.

Patel is inspired to strengthen this bridge by his identity as an American Muslim navigating a religiously diverse social landscape. A Rhodes scholar, Patel has a doctorate from Oxford University and has worked with governments, social sector organizations, and college and university campuses to help make interfaith cooperation a social norm for more than 15 years.

Named by U.S. News & World Report as one of America’s Best Leaders of 2009, Patel is the author of “Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim in the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation,” and “Sacred Ground: Pluralism, Prejudice, and the Promise of America.”

His newest book, “Interfaith Leadership: A Primer” was released in July 2016. In the book, Patel offers a practical guide to interfaith leadership, explains what interfaith leadership is and explores the core competencies and skills of interfaith leadership.

He also addresses the issues interfaith leaders may face and how they can prepare to solve them. His primer presents readers with the philosophical underpinnings of interfaith theory and outlines the skills necessary to practice interfaith leadership today.

In addition to his books, Patel writes “The Faith Divide,” a featured blog on religion for the Washington Post. He has also written for the Harvard Divinity School Bulletin, the Chicago Tribune, the Clinton Journal, the Review of Faith and International Affairs, the Sunday Times of India, and National Public Radio.

Patel serves on the Religious Advisory Committee of the Council on Foreign Relations, the National Committee of the Aga Khan Foundation USA, and the national board of the YMCA. He has spoken at the TED Conference, the Clinton Global Initiative, the Nobel Peace Prize Forum, and at universities around the world. (…)